Installing a supported compiler

When you launch Code::Blocks for the first time, it will scan the system for any supported compilers. Once this scan has finished, Code::Blocks will have been correctly configured for any detected compilers. Code::Blocks will also have default configurations even for compilers that were not found.

This article is a guide for obtaining, installing, and configuring the various compilers that Code::Blocks can use.

Compiler-neutral setup steps

Before using a compiler with Code::Blocks you have to install it. The method for installing the compiler depends on the Operating system you're using, the Compiler you intend to use and so on.
If you installed the compiler on its default installation directory, there is nothing more to configure (if the compiler is natively supported by Code::Blocks). Launch Code::Blocks and you're all set :)

If that is not the case, launch Code::Blocks. If it is the first time you launch it, the compiler auto-detection will be launched.

If your compiler was not auto-detected, go to "Settings->Compiler and Debugger->Global Compiler settings->Toolchain executables", select the compiler you installed and press "Auto-detect".

If you get a message saying that the compiler was auto-detected, congratulations!

If not, then press the button with the three dots next to the "Auto-detect" button and select the installation directory of your compiler manually.

NOTE: The compiler's installation directory is exactly this: the installation directory. Not the "bin" subdirectory nor any other.

Windows

Once you've installed a new compiler, be sure to read the Compiler-neutral setup steps at the end of this article.

At the time of this writing, Code::Blocks supports the following compilers in Windows:

These compilers are generally still under active development by their publishers, so a new version of their software could be released that is incompatible with the current version of Code::Blocks.

The following compilers are still supported by Code::Blocks, but are no longer available from their original publishers.

Microsoft's Visual C++ 2003 - 2010

Borland's C/C++ Free Compiler 5.5

The following publishers have released newer versions of their compilers which should be tested against the current configuration. In other words, it is not known yet whether these compilers still work with Code::Blocks.

MinGW/GCC

The official MinGW website is at mingw.org. A MinGW-bundled version of the latest Code::Blocks release is available from the Code::Blocks download page. If you install this version, the GCC compiler will be automatically detected and set as the default. Also you can use the TDM's GCC/mingw32 Builds from [1] or [2].

Note: In any case, if you don't install MinGW in C:\MinGW, you'll need to update the configuration of GCC in Code::Blocks.

Official MinGW.org

You can install MinGW yourself, by using an automatic downloader/installer or by downloading and unpacking the required packages by hand from mingw.org, here: [3].

Packages required (suggested) for MinGW/GCC v3.4.5:

Compiler:

gcc-build-3.4.5-20060117-3.tar.gz

gcc-core-3.4.5-20060117-3.tar.gz

gcc-g++-3.4.5-20060117-3.tar.gz

Components:

binutils-2.19.1-mingw32-bin.tar.gz

gdb-6.8-mingw-3.tar.bz2

mingw32-make-3.81-20080326.tar.gz

mingwrt-3.16-mingw32-dev.tar.gz

mingwrt-3.16-mingw32-dll.tar.gz

w32api-3.13-mingw32-dev.tar.gz

Packages required (suggested) for MinGW/GCC v4.4.0:

Compiler:

gcc-full-4.4.0-mingw32-bin-2.tar.lzma

Components:

binutils-2.19.1-mingw32-bin.tar.gz

gdb-6.8-mingw-3.tar.bz2

mingw32-make-3.81-20080326.tar.gz

mingwrt-3.16-mingw32-dev.tar.gz

mingwrt-3.16-mingw32-dll.tar.gz

w32api-3.13-mingw32-dev.tar.gz

HOWTO: Use Cygwin 1.7 with Code::Blocks

Cygwin 1.7 changed the way symlinks were created and handled when invoked from a command prompt. I couldn't find a way to force CB to use a unix-link shell, but was able to find a work around when perusing the Cygwin mailing lists.

The solution is to point your compiler and linker directly to the version of gcc and g++ that you want to use.

In my case, I wanted to use gcc-4.exe and g++-4.exe and so, I went into Settings->Compiler and Debugger->Toolchain executables. There I changed the "C Complier", "C++ Compiler" and "Linker for dynamic libs" to point to gcc-4.exe, g++-4.exe and g++-4.exe.

After this, compilation and linking worked fine.

It would also be a good idea to add an environment variable CYGWIN with a value of nodosfilewarning in Settings->Environment->Environment Variables. This eliminates the following (harmless) warning message:

These packages are included in both the Bundled Installer and the On-Demand Installer available via TDMs page referenced above for users who do not wish to download and install them manually.

Embarcadero C++ Compiler BCC32C

Formerly Borland's C++ Compiler, this compiler is now published by Embarcadero, with active on-going development; the current version is 10.1 as of this writing. Go to their product download page to download. You will be asked to enter some registration information (registration is free) then the download will begin. You will receive a ZIP archive which contains installation instructions in a text file in the root directory of the archive; it does not have an installer program.

Digital Mars C/C++ Free Compiler

Go to DigitalMars. Accept the license agreement and you'll be redirected to a page containing download links.

Intel C++ Compiler

Please note that on Windows platform, Intel C/C++ compiler requires Microsoft Visual C++[7] to be present in your system in order to function properly. It will not compile any C++ program without it. You should also note that Windows SDK[8] shall be installed in order to compile Windows app.

Code::Blocks (C::B) is now able to detect (from svn revision 4967 onwards) Intel C/C++ compiler and it'll then automatically setup the MSVC compiler so that the Intel compiler works as intended. However if you wish to manually install the Intel C/C++ compiler, then follow the following steps.

Go to Settings > Compilers and debuggers and then select Intel C/C++ compiler.

Click on the Search directories tab and add the include directories containing headers offered by Intel C/C++ compiler, MSVC compiler and the Windows SDK headers to Compiler and Resource compiler. It may look like-

Click on the OK button to save the settings. Now you should be able to use Intel C/C++ compilers on Windows with C::B.

Note: The directories specified above may be different on your PC.

Digital Mars D Compiler for Windows

Now Digital Mars D Compiler (DMD) supports 32bit Windows, and in future it will support 64bit Windows.
If you want to build D program in CodeBlocks on 32bit Windows, please following the instructions as bellow.

Linux

Digital Mars D Compiler for Linux

Now Digital Mars D Compiler (DMD) supports 32bit and 64bit Linux, and 'support Linux library' is under construction. If you want to build D program in CodeBlocks on 32bit and 64bit Linux, please following the instructions as bellow.

If you installed DMD2 to a different path, please modify "/opt/dmd2" to your own DMD2 path.

3). Testing D program in CodeBlocks.

In CodeBlocks, produce a D Application project, and input your own D code into the .d file in the project, then build/run.

Downloading the GNU GCC compiler & GDB debugger

Under Linux you'll, most probably, already have everything that is needed in order to compile. All major Linux distributions (RedHat, Debian, SuSE, Mandriva, Gentoo, ArchLinux, etc) come with GCC & GDB preinstalled. To make sure you have have gcc installed, go to your terminal and type 'gcc -v'. In case you have GCC installed, you will get GCC's compile options and version number.

Mac OS X

The Mac OS X port efforts has began recently, but it should be a matter of time until these compilers will be supported:

Setting up compiler switches

Usually you need to tweak the compiler options to be able to compile C++ applications - that's the stuff Xcode hides from your eyes, but you better should know. You need to point to the GNU compiler's C/C++ include folders, to the GNU linkers libraries folder and a adjust the compiler options to setup the GNU compiler root path. Those path's differ depending on what hardware (processor architecture) and what version of MacOS is used. For an Intel based Mac with MacOS 10.6.2 and Xcode v3.2.2 the following should work: